Discussions About Getting Around Columbus, Ohio

Roundabouts on the Road

Central Ohioans are turning to the right more often these days. That’s because of the growing popularity of roundabouts, not conservative politics. Long popular in Europe and Australia, the circular intersections where everyone turns right are becoming trendy here, too.

An unofficial count by the engineering and architectural design firm Burgess & Niple showed eight roundabouts moving traffic in central Ohio with four under construction and 19 more planned…

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I’ve only ever encountered one of these things in central Ohio. I guess I don’t do enough suburban driving.

The one I encountered though felt more like a quaint development idea to add faux-charm to the area rather than a real functional transportation feature. And there were tons of extra street signs directing traffic around it and mucking up the landscape with redundant safety precautions since no one is familiar with these things.

I know. I’ve seen the signs. You’d think you were coming up on a ramp to jump a conyon or something.

Statistically, these are surprisingly safe. That is purely anecdotal, but a woman in my Planning Innovations class (taught by the awesome Kyle Ezell of geturban.com) did a presentation on them and I recall her saying that.

Chapter 5 discusses safety. In the US, intersections converted to roundabouts have shown a mean 37% reduction in crashes and a 50% reduction in injury crashes. Other countries have had similar experiences.

Basically, roundabouts are safer because there are fewer “conflict points,” or ways of crashing, and less severe ways of crashing. There shouldn’t be angle collisions at a roundabout, where two vehicles cross paths at a 90-degree angle. There will be sideswipe collisions instead, which are less severe on average.

The big debate is about pedestrian safety and ADA laws. We (transportation engineers) aren’t sure that the blind can safely navigate a roundabout, especially a multi-lane roundabout. I personally don’t feel that two-lane roundabouts are appropriate in an urban or suburban context due to the expectation of pedestrians at urban intersections and the potential for the multiple-threat (see #710 here http://www.walkinginfo.org/facts/pbcat/ped_images.cfm). I do support single lane roundabouts in urban areas and multi-lane roundabouts in rural areas.

[…] 22, 2008 by walkerevans We previously had a nice little discussion about the rise in popularity of roundabouts in the Greater Columbus Area. It sounds like more are on the way: More roundabouts planned in city […]